Born on May 27, 1894, author Samuel Dashiell Hammett became the defining pioneer of hard‑boiled detective fiction, creating enduring characters such as Sam Spade and the sophisticated duo Nick and Nora Charles. Before writing The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, Hammett spent years working as an operative for the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. The gritty procedures, personalities, and moral ambiguities he encountered there shaped the stark realism of his fiction, giving American crime writing a sharper, harder edge than it had ever seen.